There is so much good music being made in Austin that it can be hard to keep up. To help you stay on top of it, we’ve pulled together some of the best new releases from local artists. You can hear all of these songs on-air at KUTX 98.9 or online at KUTX.org.
Israel Nash – “Pretty Boy Floyd“
Album Releases September 25th, via Desert Folklore
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Israel Nash may ruffle a few feathers this Friday when he drops his reimagination of the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, one of the most beloved and influential country rock albums of all time. I can already hear the honkytonk hipsters cry out, “how dare he!” But to be honest, I’ve had my fair share of well whiskey fueled sanctimonious tirades about how some song or album should never be covered. And I think we’ve all had the soul-siphoning experience of some corporation co-opting and commodifying a personally meaningful work of art; scooping out its humanity and parading around the hollow remains like a macabre marionette that beckons the money from people’s pockets.
I’m sure that’s how some Bob Dylan fans felt when the Byrds recorded a #1 hit by reinventing “Mr. Tambourine Man” with pop harmonies and rock n’ roll; and it’s definitely how the crowd felt at the Newport Folk Festival when Dylan sullied folk music with the profane commercial sounds of the Fender Stratocaster.
This is all to say history hasn’t been kind to the haters who couldn’t tell the difference between commercialization and artistic inspiration. So if there is anyone should reimagine the record that reinvented Americana it should be an artist with similar sensibilities, and that makes Israel Nash, who has defined a fresh, expansive, ambient tinted kind of Americana over the last decade, the musician to do it.
The Byrds brought banjo, fiddle, and bluegrass to Woody Guthrie’s tale of institutional greed, “Pretty Boy Floyd,” and 60 years later, Nash has set Guthrie’s still resonant words upon a modern canvas with synthesizer, programmed percussion, and layers of ambient sound. Nash’s version evokes vast, complex landscapes, as though channeling the spirit of a Byrd who wasn’t present on the original Sweetheart: Gene Clark, whose own work similarly ventured into lush, genre-bending territory on albums like No Other.
It makes me wonder what Sweetheart of the Rodeo would have sounded like if Clark was still with the Byrds in 1968, and what the trajectory of Americana would have been if his criminally overlooked solo career had more support in his time.
Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol – “Ca$h Grab“
Self-release October 23rd
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Speaking of selling out, Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol’s latest single “Ca$h Grab” is their most pop-forward single to date. I’m joking about the first part, but I’m serious that Austin’s doom metal gods of mischief have, with great success, introduced earworm melodies and lyrical introspection to their fuzz-soaked titanic doom metal/stoner rock blend.
With albums like Big Dumb Riffs and Doom Wop, the Austin trio have always had a an amusing self-awareness to their naming conventions, but this time, the sarcastically titled “Ca$h Grab” feels more like a mask for its vulnerable lyrics and the heavy personal demons they reveal. The truth is, heavy music has always been a refuge for many to communally exorcize their demons, and recently more have begun to say this quiet truth out loud, like the organizers behind Fire in the Mountains Festival, and Steve Von Till of Neurosis who played their first set in over 5 years at the festival.
Nonetheless, Rickshaw Billie’s lyrical metamorphosis coincides with some duly melancholic sonic shifts as well, combining two of my favorite things that this mortal coil allows: to be sonically cudgeled with unspeakably heavy doom metal riffs and the ego death that occurs when the psyche is drowned out in fathomless strata of shoegaze guitar noise. It’s a sound akin to what was spearheaded by bands like Jesu over 20 years ago and resurfaced recently in bands like Cloakroom beneath the “doomgaze” umbrella. But Rickshaw Billie’s take adds some much needed levity to a world that is sometimes too bleak for even the doomiest of doom metal fans.
Also, is that a nod to Doug Martsch in the outro riff? Perfection.
BRUCE – “fresh cut love”
Self-released July 10, 2026
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Raised in rural East Texas, Carrie Fussell learned early that imagination could be a survival skill. For more than a decade, she applied that instinct into the Austin psychedelic folk collective Calliope Musicals. In that time Fussell was like a technicolor faerie who could coerce the most whimsical impulses out of anyone, but after they broke up in 2022, Fussell stepped away from performing for some time. That was until the late legendary Jon Dee Graham invited her to perform the late night slot on his long-running Wednesday residency. In those after-hours sets, BRUCE emerged.
Collaboration was key for Calliope, but with BRUCE, Fussell has found a vehicle for writing deeply personal songs. As she hilariously recalls in her recent taping of the Hole Story, for the first several months at the Continental Club, she’d begin her set with the lilting, medieval choral-like ode to her eight-year-old self, “Trash Fire Singing Child,” a choice that sometimes prompted an exodus from the club and hecklers yelling, “I came here to get drunk!” Fussell’s response: “I came here for therapy, for free!”
On “Fresh Cut Love, ” her first single since BRUCE’s debut LP Must Love Teet, Fussell dives even deeper into personal territory, with what she says is the first proper love song she has ever released that isn’t about cats or general humanity. Over an electronic beat both dreamy and harsh, Fussell reminds us that she’s a classically trained vocalist with seriously monster chops – her love story operatically soaring above the electronic undertow. I think she should write more love songs. Also, thanks Jon for coaxing BRUCE out of Carrie.
Stalefish – “Big Fan”
Self-released August 25, 2026
Album Out October 9
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Something must be in the air because Austin’s Stalefish also has a bit of Built to Spill in their DNA. Although the Austin six-piece has their sound firmly planted in the indie rock space, their latest single “Big Fan” makes a strong case they are among the best to do it in a long time.
The members of Stalefish met in the Austin scene while most of them were still playing in different bands, and maybe that’s the key ingredient of their special alchemy – they gravitated towards each other after they had independently developed as musicians. “Big Fan” suggests they may share an affinity for There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, but their sound encompasses so much that it seems each member brings their own favorite flavor of indie rock to the table. The magic is in their synergy despite so many different ideas and inspirations.
The uselessness of “indie rock” as a descriptor isn’t lost on me when bands as different as the Feelies, Sebadoh, and Pavement can all be lumped within the same genre. Still, Stalefish has sounded a little bit like all of them at various points in their discography. That’s also why “Big Fan” might be their best single yet – they no longer sound like any of them. Snide social commentary on sycophantic scenesters bounces alongside fuzzed out guitar wails as the band further catalogues their psychic oppressors, all delivered with a vaguely pop-punk attitude and intoxicatingly catchy hooks. They may have achieved the indie rock self-actualization with this one, and I can’t wait to hear more when they drop their 3rd album Bueno on October 9th.
Starflake – “Don’t Let Go”
Released September 1, 2026, via Escondidio Sound
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In a recent interview with the Austin Chronicle, The Bright Light Social Hour co-founder and Starflake frontman Jackie O’Brien revealed the inspiration behind the creative liberation that eventually became the whimsical, genre agnostic Starflake: grief.
In 2015 his younger brother passed away and it fundamentally rearranged his beliefs about making art. O’Brien recalls how his brother often told him to stop giving a fuck about what other people think, and those words burned in his mind for years.
You don’t need to know the backstory to find the joy and pleasures of Starflake’s self-titled debut. The record effortlessly glides between funk, cumbia, psychedelic rock, Afrobeat, and a host of other sounds. Sometimes it’s genuinely funny, like the opening track “I Would Fuck Myself” and the Song Confessional Podcast single “Dirty Thoughts.” Others are hypnotic like the lysergic groove on “Bajo La Luna.” On “Don’t Let Go” O’Brien brings an early aughts electroclash bark to a beat that sounds like Kraftwerk’s arpeggiators went on a tropicalia vacation with an emotionally pent up Andy Gill of Gang of Four.
If there’s a common denominator among the singles it’s joy – and danceability of course. It’s a sound achieved by open-minded spontaneous experimentation between masterful musicians with distinct musical backgrounds from cumbia to experimental electronic music, and it’s truly a beautiful transmutation of grief into a celebration of life and community.
